Background: Health interventions continue to grow on social media and researchers must find innovative ways to engage online communities to inform research activities. Little has been documented describing this approach for health messages on social media.

Methods: We assembled a diverse parent advisory board (PAB) by recruiting on Twitter: six parents (5 female, 1 male) who identify as African American, South Asian-American, and white, from across six states in the U.S., including urban, suburban and rural, with children ages 11-12. Over a six-month period, we held monthly meetings with the PAB to develop personas to be used to deliver HPV vaccine messages to other parents on Twitter. Before each meeting they completed a workbook with persona development materials and targeted questions to gather extensive feedback.

Results: The PAB helped develop four personas that will be used to deliver HPV vaccine messages on Twitter: 1) Informed Altruist, 2) Real Talker, 3) Information Gatherer, and 4) Supporter. They provided expert insights and feedback on persona characteristics, lifestyle, vaccine motivations, vaccine issues, communication, contextual influences, and individual influences. The PAB suggested to highlight specific fears around vaccines (e.g., making the wrong decision or not feeling confident in a choice). They also discussed how they personally communicate with other parents around vaccines, and how we could incorporate those specific details into the personas.

Conclusion: Engaging parents on Twitter to inform research activities was important for buy-in and oversight of research activities. Their breadth of experiences and depth of understandings provided important grounding in health messaging.